Harvard Reunion Talk on Social Connection
I was honored to be invited to be one of eight speakers offering “Nuggets of Wisdom” at my 35th Harvard reunion recently. My talk, “Better Get Yourself Connected,” drew upon our work here at SCI and offered practical tips for building social connection into your daily life. I’ve been very pleased to hear dozens of reports from classmates about how they have embraced the tips to be intentional about their relationships, and make new connections.
The talk opens with a story from a chilly December afternoon in 2020, huddled with my family around patio heat lamps just to get a bit of social contact during the pandemic. That moment stuck with me, and it points to something bigger: we are increasingly isolated and disconnected, with real consequences for our health and well-being. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s 2023 report found that about half of Americans feel lonely, and only 39% feel strongly connected to others. Social isolation now carries the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
I also shared the story of reading Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” on a flight to San Francisco two decades ago, and how it left me ready to jump out of the plane and start building social capital. I waited until we landed, and founded Social Capital Inc. in 2002. Since then, we’ve been working to build social connection in communities across the Boston area.
From there, I offered three practical tips for getting reconnected: talk to strangers (we consistently underestimate how much we’ll enjoy it), put get-togethers on the calendar instead of leaving them to a well-intentioned “we should catch up,” and become a Cultivator of Connection in the small, everyday moments — a coffee shop regular, a question at the start of a meeting, a conversation with someone whose name you’ve forgotten.
You can read more in my LinkedIn article here.
And watch the full talk on our YouTube channel here.
